Okay, we all know it's very hard to be a nice guy, what with all of these difficult people around.
You bet. They suck. How is one supposed to be kind?
Welll......
We all suck. We are all not nice guys.
Yep, that's the meta-worm underneath it all. Humans really aren't as social as we'd like to believe.
Sure, we can envision ourselves howling around in the treetops. Sounds friendly, eh?
Until the alphas start throwing the weaklings down, down, down to the ground.
How to be a nice guy. I've been trying to be a nice guy all my life. When I was four, it was reported that I was seen admonishing some other children who were stoning me, that it was not right to throw rocks!
Well, yeah. They were probably fairly small rocks, what with my being four and all. But still.
That wasn't really being a nice guy, though. That was more some kind of proto-moral self preservation. Some kind of shock.
WTF, these people are throwing rocks at me. Surely they must understand this isn't right?
Nope.
Okay. So, how to be a nice guy involves a lot of shock. Yep, comes with the territory. "How could they do this to me?" soon works into "How could they do this to you?"
But of course they already stoned you. So what do you do when you see others being stoned?
That may be one of the most important philosophical questions we have to address.
You took it. You survived. You were damaged. There's another being stoned.
What do you do?
What is your job, there?
What did it do to you, being stoned, that changed you, as to how you react to observing another being stoned?
Did it make you more or less kind, more or less brave? And what did it do to your relationship with rocks?
There have been human beings who have died by being buried in stones. That was a method of execution back in the middle ages.
Crushed to death by stones.
How to be a nice guy...it's so often about dodging.
The cheese stands alone
One thing about being the cheese,
Is that there is a lot of room.
And also, you get to be in the middle,
It has been said
That when your ass is on the line
You are well situated.
It has also been said, that he who hesitates is lunch.
But, what else is the cheese to do?
All there alone in the middle
Dodging relentlessly.
It is a sort of structured hesitation, all of this getting out of the way.
Backed off; everybody else is in the picture.
The cheese is the camera.
The cheese is the lunch.
(mine)
The cheese stands alone. When I think about trying to be a nice guy, I think about the cheese, standing there alone. I've been there (obviously). It can be pretty painful.
I've taken to looking out for these cheeses. They aren't always pretty, or elegant; in fact, usually they aren't. But they're always alone. And they turn up here sometimes. Lonely cheeses, getting stuff thrown at them.
They give us such opportunities. Lemons, these cheeses.
But what of lemonade?
Maybe we could all have some lemonade? Even the cheeses.
I always want to think it possible. Cheeses, lemonade.
and pie.
All in peace.
And everybody gets a pony. And we stop hating.
Right here.
Miep